2008 BIG PROJECT #3: ARBOR PATH

But first, an update on Big Project #2, which is hanging fabric panels over the old opaque ceiling in the glassed-in dining solarium. Here’s the latest view of the panels:

The panels are up as you can see, but we’ll be tweaking the fastening of the panels where one panel meets another. We’re hoping to be finished with the fabric fine tuning later this Summer. We love how it looks so far. We hope you do, too.

Now, back to Big Project #3. The part of the project being done this year entailed converting a gravel path to stone. Here’s the old gravel path that leads to the arbor and deck overlooking the water:

The stone arrived in late April and we put it down in a surprisingly random yet asthetically pleasing pattern:

Then, as Spring turned into Summer, we (meaning Dave) spent countless hours and weeks — in between threats of rain — scraping gravel, dumping buckets full of gravel, digging in each stone (over 150 of them), leveling the stones and making them look good. Brigette went to work keeping out the weeds and embarking on a search for Elfin Thyme, which is teeny tiny 1-inch high thyme that you can walk on, to plant in between the stones (hopefully in the Spring).

Here’s the stone path finished (sorry, it was a sunny day so the arbor didn’t show up). This is about half the length of the whole path:

We also planted a hedgerow of Euonymus fortunei “Emerald and Gold Wintercreeper” shrubs, which are evergreen and get to be three to four feet tall and just as wide. The shrubs are at the end opposite of the arbor (in other words, we have yet to take a decent picture of them to show you).

Now on to measuring the Lake House windows for window flower boxes…2008 Big Project #4 might be just around the corner…